Switching Things Up

I’m going to change the order in which I write about things for a while.  (I know this would bother you if I didn’t explain it.)  Up to now, my Wednesday essays have been about politics, but from now on they’re going to be about local news in Williamsburg.  This is because our local newspaper – the Virginia Gazette – comes out on Wednesdays and Saturdays.  My plan is to write every Wednesday about an issue featured in the local newspapers that doesn’t get national or even statewide attention. My politics essay will now be on Fridays.

First I need to set the stage. 

We all know that things do not look good for local newspapers.  Since 2005, more than a quarter of newspapers in the US – 2,500 of them – have closed.  The surviving newspapers have made major cuts to staff and circulation.  These papers are vital to the health of communities – it is arguably much more important to know about who is elected to the school board than who is elected president.  But these local races and other events get little news coverage on anything but local media unless puppies, cute kids, or freaks are involved.

Social media doesn’t take the place of these newspapers.  Newspapers are produced by journalists who aspire to write stories that are both important and fact-based.  Reporters are accountable to their editors, and they all try to adhere to generally accepted journalist standards.   We could argue about how well they do this, but this is what they try to do. Announcements on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tik-Tok, and YouTube, on the other hand, are not vetted for accuracy and legality; a public that relies on such “unmediated media” is likely to be either ill-informed or misinformed — or both.

My community of Williamsburg is served by two local newspapers:  The Daily Press and the Virginia Gazette.  Here’s a little about each of these papers.

Daily Press

(This information is from the Library of Congress “Chronicling America” website. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83045830/).

Founded in Newport News in 1896 as a four-page penny newspaper, the Daily Press issued its first edition on January 4, less than two weeks before the General Assembly recognized the port town as a city.

Newport News had grown rapidly since 1880 when railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington had declared the port particularly “ideal for enterprise” and had extended the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway from Richmond to the Virginia Peninsula, thereby providing a new outlet for the export of West Virginia’s vast resources of bituminous coal.  Ten years later, Huntington built his first dry dock in Newport News. His shipyard quickly grew into an economic goliath, with the fortunes of Newport News again following closely behind. The Daily Press, owned and edited by Charles E. Thacker, soon established itself as the primary daily morning newspaper covering the Virginia Peninsula.

Thacker edited the paper from a small print shop in the basement of the First National Bank. The maiden issue’s editorial column stated, “A newspaper that pleases all of its readers cannot be found this side of Utopia. It is not expected that the Daily Press will be this rara avis of the journalistic world in this respect. The publishers will endeavor, however, to make the best paper ever published on the Peninsula—a paper worthy of the growing city of Newport News.” Thacker especially promised “to espouse the right and oppose the wrong wherever found.”

By 1910, the Daily Press had a circulation of 1,700–still, though, less than the afternoon daily, the Times-Herald, born of a merger between two papers. Thacker eventually sold the Daily Press to bankers Henry and George Schmelz. Three years later they in turn purchased the rival Times-Herald. The two papers thereafter shared the same presses and production staffs, but their news staffs remained separate and often fiercely competitive.

Ownership changed again in 1930 when William E. Rouse bought both papers. His son-in-law, Raymond B. Bottom, was elected president of the Daily Press and business manager of the publishing company in 1931. By then circulation of the Daily Press had reached 6,100. At Bottom’s death in 1953, his 57-year-old widow, Dorothy Rouse Bottom, became editor. Although she began with no editorial and little business experience, she ably guided the paper for 27 years–with circulation growing from 25,810 to 58,280 during her tenure. The Bottom family continued to own the paper until 1986 when it was sold to the Chicago-based Tribune Company.

Still published today under the Tribune Company, the Daily Press has a daily circulation of more than 80,000.

Virginia Gazette

The Virginia Gazette has a much longer history than the Daily Press.  The Virginia Gazette was the official newspaper of Virginia, printed in Williamsburg from 1736 until 1780. When the capital of Virginia moved to Richmond in 1780, printers transferred their businesses to the new seat of government.

According to Wikipedia, there were actually three papers published in Williamsburg under the name The Virginia Gazette between 1736 and 1780. Together, these papers serve as an important record of Virginia's colonial history. The original Virginia Gazette, the first newspaper ever published in Virginia, was established by William Parks, who printed the first four-page edition on August 6, 1736. Its motto was "Containing the freshest Advices, Foreign and Domestick." Three years earlier, Parks had founded The Maryland Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland. In 1743, Parks built a paper mill in Williamsburg; he purchased the raw material to create newsprint from Benjamin Franklin. The paper was published, successively, by William Parks (1736–1750), William Hunter (1751–1761), Joseph Royle (1761–1765), Alexander Purdie and John Dixon (1766-1775), Dixon and Hunter (1775-1778), and Dixon and Thomas Nicolson (1779–1780). The last issue was published on April 8, 1780, after which point the paper relocated to Richmond, Virginia's new capital.

In 1766 William Rind founded a competing newspaper also called The Virginia Gazette. This paper was published by Rind (1766–1773), then by his widow Clementina Rind (1773–1774), and finally John Pinkney (1774–1776). Its last issue was printed on February 3, 1776.  On February 3, 1775, Alexander Purdie, previously a publisher of the original Gazette, started a third paper of the same name. It was published by Purdie until his death in 1779; it was then published by John Clarkson and Augustine Davis until December 9, 1780. Afterward, various papers were published periodically around Virginia using the Virginia Gazette banner.

In 1930, W. A. R. Goodwin, pastor of the local Bruton Parish Church and a co-founder of Colonial Williamsburg, made a push for a paper to return to Williamsburg under the banner of The Virginia Gazette. At Goodwin's urging, publisher J. A. Osborne moved to town from Florida and established the modern paper. In 1961 the Osborne family sold the paper to John O. W. Gravely III.  Gravely died in 1975 and his widow Martha became president and publisher. The Gravely family sold the paper in 1986 to the Chesapeake Publishing Corp. of Easton, MD., a subsidiary of Whitney Communications. Later in 2001, Chesapeake sold the paper to the Daily Press, a Tribune Co. daily in Newport News, Virginia.

Through the years, the paper won Virginia Press Association's award for community excellent in publishing three times, in 1969, 1980 and 1994. Long a weekly newspaper, the Gazette expanded to twice-weekly in 1984.

So.  The Daily Press owns the Virginia Gazette; both newspapers are part of the Tribune Co. network of newspapers.

Before we moved to Williamsburg in 1998, we subscribed to the Virginia Gazette and received it by mail in Fairfax (it took a few days to get there).  This was before the paper was available online.  We did this to get a feel for our new community, and it served that purpose very well.   We have continued to get both newspapers delivered to our door – the Daily Press every day and the Virginia Gazette on Wednesdays and Saturdays. 

Both newspapers cover national and local news in much the same way — sometimes with identical syndicated articles — as you might expect.  But the Virginia Gazette in particular provides a local perspective for events of interest to our small community.  Sports stories feature local high school and college athletics, along with community leagues.  Old people playing pickleball even get some coverage.  News stories have a local focus as well, as they feature local political campaigns, meetings of local governing bodies, local restaurants and entertainment events, local obituaries, and so forth.  Clubs like the Rotary and Lions often have stories and pictures in the newspaper about their recent meetings or upcoming events.  Advertisements promote local stores, restaurants, and services.  Human interest feel-good stories feature people who live in the town.  I often recognize the names of the people who have sent in letters to the editor and I frequently recognize names in the obituaries (alas).

A paper subscription to these newspapers includes online access as well.  I sometimes look at the online newspaper if I want to read a story that was published sometime in the past, because we only keep our hard copies for a few days before they go in the recycling bin.  But we still go to the end of our driveway every day to pick up the paper, and we read it over breakfast.  Some habits are hard to break.

My plan for my Wednesday essays (for a while at least) is to use the Wednesday Virginia Gazette as my inspiration.

This is the front page of the Virginia Gazette for Saturday, August 13.  This story is not of great interest to anyone who doesn’t live in or near Williamsburg, but it’s very interesting to the people who live here.

This is the page 2-3 spread.  It’s interesting to me, but probably not to you unless you live here.

Once I decided I was going to make this switch a couple of weeks ago, I realized I started reading the Gazette more attentively.  I’m already finding it even more rewarding than I thought it would be.